Ralph Waldo Emerson

Life consists of what a man is thinking about all day.

When the spirit is not master of the world, then it is its dupe.

We shun the rugged battle of fate where strength is born.

Genius appeals to the future.

To this military attitude of the soul we give the name of Heroism... It is a self-trust which slights the restraints of prudence, in the plenitude of its energy and power to repair the harms it may suffer. The hero is a mind of such balance that no disturbances can shake his will...

[on Thoreau:] For not a particle of respect had he to the opinions of any man or body of men, but homage solely to truth itself.

Envy is ignorance. Imitation is suicide.

It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself… Serve and thou shall be served.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this. The only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.

There’s nothing capricious in nature, and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feels it.

Each man has his own vocation. The talent is the call. There is one direction in which all space is open to him. He has faculties silently inviting him thither to endless exertion. He is like a ship in a river; he runs against obstructions on every side but one; on that side all obstruction is taken away, and he sweeps serenely over a deepening channel into an infinite sea. This talent and this call depend on his organization, or the mode in which the general soul incarnates itself in him. He inclines to do something which is easy to him, and good when it is done, but which no other man can do. He has no rival. For the more truly he consults his own powers, the more difference will his work exhibit from the work of any other. His ambition is exactly proportioned to his powers. The height of the pinnacle is determined by the breadth of the base. Every man has this call of the power to do somewhat unique, and no man has any other call. The pretence that he has another call, a summons by name and personal election and outward "signs that mark him extraordinary, and not in the roll of common men," is fanaticism, and betrays obtuseness to perceive that there is one mind in all the individuals, and no respect of persons therein.

Good luck is another name for tenacity of purpose.

No man has ever had a point of pride that was not injurious to him.

And such should be the outward biography of man in time, a putting off of dead circumstances day by day, as he renews his raiment day by day.

It is one of the beautiful compensations of this life that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

Whoso would ever be a man, must be a noncomformist.

Nothing is at last sacred but the integrity of your mind.

A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun breeds clouds.

We shun the rugged battle of fate, where strength is born.

Genius appeals to the future.

Fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of revolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he appears.

Nothing great was ever achieved without enthusiasm.

[on Thoreau:] He decided to give up his large ambition of knowledge and action for any narrow craft or profession, aiming at a much more comprehensive calling, the art of living.

There is one mind common to all men.

The soul refuses limits and always affirms an optimism, never a pessimism.

For nonconformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

When God lets loose a great thinker on this planet, then all things are at risk. There is not a piece of science but its flank may be turned to-morrow; nor any literary reputation or the so-called eternal names of fame that many not be refused and condemned.

The measure of mental health is the disposition to see good everywhere.

Fear is a great instructor.

Great men are they who see that spirituality is stronger than any material force; that thoughts rule the world.

In like manner the effect of every action is measured by the depth of the sentiment from which it proceeds. The great man knew not that he was great. It took a century or two for that fact to appear. What he did, he did, he did because he must; it was the most natural thing in the world, and grew out of the circumstances of the moment.

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

The ancestor to every action is a thought.

Trust thyself.

Sometimes a scream is better than a thesis.

I cannot find language of sufficient energy to convey my sense of the sacredness of private integrity.

Men imagine that they communicate their virtue or vice only by overt actions, and do not see that virtue or vice emit a breath every moment.

For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

Love is our highest word and the synonym for God.

Love is our highest word and the synonym for God.

For it is only the finite that has wrought and suffered; the infinite lies stretched in smiling repose.

And truly it demands something godlike in him who has cast off the common motives of humanity, and has ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster. High be his heart, faithful his will, clear his sight, that he may in good earnest be doctrine, society, law, to himself, that a simple purpose may be to him as strong as iron necessity is to others!

Ideas must work through the brains and the arms of good and brave men, or they are no better than dreams.

AS to methods there may be a million and then some, but principles are few. The man who grasps principles can successfully select his own methods. The man who tries methods, ignoring principles, is sure to have trouble.

It is one of the most beautiful compensations of life, that no man can sincerely try to help another without helping himself.

All infractions of love and equity in our social relations are speedily punished--by fear…be honest with a man and you have no fear. Try to deceive and the relationship deteriorates.

Concentration is the secret of strength in politics, in war, in trade, in short in all management of human affairs.

Every evil to which we do not succumb is a benefactor.

There is no knowledge that is not power.

The years teach us much the days never knew.

The only way to have a friend is to be one.

Whoso would be a man must be a nonconformist.

O friend, never strike sail to a fear!

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

Do the thing and you will have the power.

A great man is always willing to be little.

Men of sense esteem wealth to be the assimilation of nature to themselves, the converting of the sap and juices of the planet to the incarnation and nutriment of their design.

The characteristic of genuine heroism, is its persistency. All men have wandering impulses, fits and starts of generosity. But when you have resolved to be great, abide by yourself, and do not weakly try to reconcile yourself with the world. The heroic cannot be the common, nor the common the heroic.

There are many things of which a wise man might wish to be ignorant.

He is great who confers the most benefits.

The great will not condescend to take anything seriously.

The ancestor to every action is a thought.

Every man needs to thank his faults.

The ancestor of every action is a thought.

People seem not to see that their opinion of the world is also a confession of character.

God will not have his work made manifest by cowards.

Trust thyself; every heart vibrates to that iron string.

No man thoroughly understands a truth until he has contended against it.

The essence of greatness is the perception that virtue is enough.

A friend may well be reckoned the masterpiece of nature.

Our greatest glory is not in never failing, but in rising up every time we fail.

Heroism feels and never reasons, and therefore is always right.

No law can be sacred to me but that of my nature. Good and bad are but names very readily transferable to that or this. The only right is what is after my constitution; the only wrong what is against it.

I see it only that thyself is here, and art and nature, hope and fate, friends, angels and the supreme being shall not be absent from the chamber where thou sittest.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

But whoso is heroic must find crises to try his edge. Human virtue demands her champions and martyrs, and the trial of persecution always proceeds.

The purpose of life is not to be happy. It is to be useful, to be honorable, to be compassionate, to have it make some difference that you have lived and lived well.

It was a high counsel that I once heard given to a young person, 'Always do what you are afraid to do.'

The crime which bankrupts men and states is job-work—declining from your main design, to serve a turn here and there. Nothing is beneath you, if it is in the direction of your life, nothing is great or desirable if it is off from that. I think we are entitled here to draw a straight line and say that society can never prosper but must always be bankrupts, until every man does that which he was created to do.

The measure of mental health is the disposition to find good everywhere.

There’s nothing capricious in nature, and the implanting of a desire indicates that its gratification is in the constitution of the creature that feels it.

How much of human life is lost in waiting!

To be yourself in a world that is constantly trying to make you something else is the greatest accomplishment.

I see not any road of perfect peace which a man can walk but after the counsel of his own bosom.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

A feeble man can see the farms that are fenced and tilled, the houses that are built. The strong man sees the possible houses and farms. His eye makes estates as fast as the sun breeds clouds.

When nature has work to be done, she creates a genius to do it.

Our desires presage the capacities within us; they are harbingers of what we shall be able to accomplish. What we can do and want to do is projected in our imagination, quite outside ourselves, and into the future. We are attracted to what is already ours in secret. Thus passionate anticipation transforms what is indeed possible into dreamt-for reality.

Let us draw a lesson from nature, which always works by short ways. When the fruit is ripe, it falls.

The education of the will is the object of our existence.

The first wealth is health.

For non-conformity the world whips you with its displeasure.

Self-trust is the essence of heroism

And truly it demands something godlike in him who cast off the common motives of humanity and ventured to trust himself for a taskmaster.

Every great and commanding movement in the annals of the world is due to the triumph of enthusiasm.

Fear always springs from ignorance.

Love is our highest word and the synonym for God.

Fear is an instructor of great sagacity and the herald of revolutions. One thing he teaches, that there is rottenness where he appears.